Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

We had two Christmas ‘celebrations’ this year – one a week early with most of our family to celebrate together, and then we went over to my parent’s house again for Christmas afternoon as well.

Hope had a lot of fun! She was adorably cute in some little dresses, played outside for a bit, enjoyed another horse ride from Sarah, loved her presents, and had so much fun all day that when we put her in her car-seat to go home she was out cold within 2 minutes.

She has had a blast playing with her new presents, includiong her own little tea-set, and a fun bus to ride around on from her Grandmas, a little piano and a big teddy-bear. Her all-time favorite gift was her very own laptop computer, complete with a keyboard and a mouse, that she can play with just like mommy. She has apparently spent way too much time watching mom work and type away on my laptop … because the first thing she did with her laptop was to start busily typing away with all her little fingers while moving the mouse around then typing some more. It was really cute to watch!

Time sure has flown – one year and four months since Hope was born, and she just gets more beautiful every day.

She has an entire little vocabulary of words now. Her original ‘doggie’ has expanded to include ‘baby’, mommy, dada, phone, hello, eee (horsie) many other words we can’t yet make out, and some specific exclamations when she hears a phone ring or the dogs outside barking.

She is the first to let us know when the phone rings – with an excited ‘phone!’ and pointing for us to answer it. Anytime the dogs outside start barking at something, she’ll run up to us and say something excited about it while repeatedly pointing from herself out the window.

Hope is fascinated with phones. She loves to steal one of our phones and push the buttons, or to listen while someone on the other end talks to her. Some of her favorite toys are old dead cell phones and toy phones to play with. She knows exactly how to pick up a phone, push the buttons, hold it up to her ear, and say ‘Hello!”, just like mom and dad do all the time!

“Baby” is another of her recent words that she uses a lot this month. I don’t know where she picked it up from, as I never taught her this specifically, but she will walk up to me, pull up my shirt, and put her hand flat on my baby-belly and repeat ’baby’ every time. Of course there are the moments of confusion where the calls her own tummy a ‘baby’ as well, or even Richard’s belly a ‘baby’, but she seems to have a fascination with petting and rubbing mom’s baby belly while repeating ‘baby’. It really is cute. She does recognize real babies as well – excitedly pointing out pictures on walls or magazines of babies, or referring to real babies as well with a point and exclamation of ‘baby’! It will be interesting to see what she thinks of her new baby brother or sister when it is born.

A few months back she was not sure what to think of the horses – they were interesting to observe, but up close a little intimidating. That all changed when aunt Sarah gave Hope her first horse ride on Cochise (with cousin Rachel to help hold her on). Hope was nothing but excited ear-to-ear smiles for the whole thing, and we have heard exclamations of “eee” (Hope’s version of horsie) ever since!

15 months finds our little girl just under 20 lbs in weight (19 3/4 lbs to be exact), but she more than makes up for her petite size with a big personality!

Hope is easily walking now, bravely exploring, becoming more and more vocal all the time, and in this photo she is having fun stepping on crunchy leaves at the park.

She is becoming quite an independent little thinker, and an escape artist to boot – learning how to open gates to areas of the house we try to keep her out of.

I have a bag of “Taste of the Wild” brand dog food for Faith in the house. Faith’s dog-food bowl is in our bedroom, which is off limits to Hope unless we are with her in there. Her recent gate-opening skills have lead to escapes into the bedroom, and hunting forays for food. Apparently we don’t feed out daughter enough, and the ‘wild’ tastes pretty good.

Fourteen months finds Hope happily motoring all over on her own little legs!

Walking, talking, pointing, waving, and even getting brave enough to do a little exploring on her own – she seems to be constantly growing, changing, and surprising us with something new every day.

Joanna had a birthday this month, and we took a trip to the zoo with Joanna and some of my other siblings too. Hope liked all the animals she got to see and point at, and had a blast walking around on her own. Once her little legs got tired she discovered what a view she got from dad’s shoulders – and happily rode up there for the rest of the time.

Aunt Joanna sure is a lot of fun, and she even lets Hope help her play the piano!

“Doggie” is Hope’s favorite word this month. Did I mention that she said ‘doggie’ even before she said ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’?

Hope is fascinated with dogs in general. She loves every dog she meets, small or large, and greets all with a pat on the head and an excited ‘doggie! Her favorite doggie is my Italian Greyhound Faith though. Hope plays with Faith, pets her, follows her around, hugs her, talks in her ear, and even takes naps with her. Faith seems to love every minute of it. I love watching them together.

Here are a couple cute photos from this month. Hope napping with Dad. The second is hope proudly hanging on to her loot – she has become quite a little pick-pocket and loves digging in pockets for anything she can pull out and lay claim to. And the third is Hope helping me take puppy pictures.

( Click on any photo to view image full-size! )

This picture has to be one of my favorites though – Hope and Faith napping in the sun together.

Hope is walking easily all over now, getting more and more vocal, and growing in lots of new teeth too. No wonder she’s tired in this picture – she does a lot of running around.

Mom and Dad are having to do quite a lot more running around as well to keep up with her!

Richard has long claimed (since shortly after he met me) that I have a certain ‘touch’ when it comes to computers.

According to him, I touch a computer and it breaks. In fact, he almost goes so far as to say that if I look at a computer is breaks.

All I can say is that it must run in my genetics, as Hope is working on her extra-special computer ‘touch’ already – yes – even at such a young age she is getting pretty good at it!

Richard was happily working away online today, while Hope was playing with some toys in the living room with us. All of a sudden Richard’s computer screen flickered … flashed … and went black! (and no, I hadn’t touched or even looked at it).

He was still staring in confusion at his screen when I looked under the office table to find Hope sitting in front of his computer case with her finger on the power button … Click, click, click … and SUCH a grin on her face!

Hope had a blast at the beach, playing with rocks and considering being brave enough to get some sand in between her toes. On the towel was save, but it took her a little time to work up the courage to play in the sand.

By the time we left though, she was a salty, sticky, sandy little mess – so I guess she must have enjoyed herself!

We went to the DelMar Racetrack one afternoon - Hope seemed to enjoy hanging out in the grandstand and pointing at the horses. Pointing is another of her new accomplishments. Every-time she sees something she is interested in she’ll happily point at it.

We got to visit Jesse and Lindsay for a couple days in San Francisco, and see the Monteray Bay Aquarium (but a camera malfunction lost all my aquarium photos ). It was a long trip but a nice break.

Eating on her own has fascinated Hope this month. She does quite well at feeding herself. Getting the food from the tray into her mouth, onto all surrounding areas of her face, and into her ears and hair, and any other nearby surfaces.

This is one time when a picture most certainly is worth a thousand words … so enjoy the shots below!

( Click on any photo to view image full-size! )

My sister Joy came back from the Philippines for a visit this month as well – it was really great to get to see her again. Our whole family met up in the mountains for an afternoon to hang out with her – here are a couple photos of Hope enjoying the outdoors. I don’t know how I missed getting a photo of her with Joy though :(

Richard’s Father’s Day Gift from Hope was a small package … but contained a BIG Surprise!

( Click on photo to view image full-size! )

I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m so fond of playing practical jokes on people … but Richard’s first words were “Are you serious”? Shortly followed by “I don’t believe you”.

I guess the fact that I was not (yet) morning-sick in bed constantly made things seem a little more unbelievable to him. Once I managed to convince him I was serious, he was really excited too though. A great Father’s Day Surprise (and he liked the chocolate too)!

Hope at 10 months is growing and learning fast! She crawls easily everywhere, but is also starting to becoming more mobile pulling herself up and walking along things she can hold on to. She is quite excited about waving – and happily waves hi and bye almost all the time – except when we are visiting someone and she gets shy. :)

She got to meet the horses with Joanna while visiting my parents house this afternoon. Though we gave her bribes (apples) Hope was not quite sure what to think of the horses … especially when they stuck their big noses up to her and sniffed at the apples!

Naptime in Dad’s lap is a special treat – usually accompanied by Faith as well. More often than not Richard gets a bit of an afternoon nap as well. I had to grab the camera and sneak this shot … it was too sweet to pass up.

( Click on any photo to view image full-size! )

My brother Jesse and his wife Lindsay left this month to move to San Francisco, CA, for a couple years while Lindsay attends a dental school program out there. Hope is going to grow so much while they are gone, she always likes Jesse holding her – I love this expression on her face!

9 months old, and lots of new accomplishments to brag about! Hope is standing up now, she’ll pull herself up on anything she can hold on to.

Every morning we wake up to see her little face happily peering at us from her crib now – and as soon as either Richard or I moves she gets so excited!

Her crib is a favorite place to stand – I think she likes the bars to hold on to (or peer between – as the case may be). She’s always so pleased with herself when she gets all the way up – like she’s thinking wow, what an accomplishment!

Eating (on her own) is another accomplishment she is quite proud of, although still mastering. She is very opinionated about being fed – spoon feeding just seems to be unacceptable while anything that be classified as finger-food and eaten (or worn) on her own is ideal.

Of course bath-time usually follows eating … as the skill of getting the food IN her mouth is still being learned. Lucky for her, she thinks baths are pretty fun too. :)

( Click on any photo to view image full-size! )

( Click on any photo to view image full-size! )

Hard to believe these past 9 months flew by so fast. Her first 9 months (admittedly highly due to the morning-sickness) seemed to be such a longer period of time…

Naptime is alwasy best with someone warm and soft to snuggle up with. Turns out Mom’s old bear was just the thing. My Mom made me this bear when I was two, so it’s been around for quite some time, but I think is just all the more soft and snuggly for it’s age. Apparently Hope seems to agree with me! :)

Hope is working hard at figuring out this crawling thing. She can now easily get up on her hands and knees, and while she does not yet actually crawl, she can manage to get around fairly well already.

She’s always so excited about moving around, she just has to figure out the order things move in and bring it all together now. It is so much fun to watch her learning, she gets so happy and excited and enthusiastic about everything!